


to polaris, the north star

by ghoulgy



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: 2000s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, Established Relationship, Fluff, Genealogy, Getting Together, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Snapshots, VHS Tapes, Vignette, bg seokgyu + sooncheol, bike boy hansol, car burial, im so fucking sorry, not a soulmates au but u could make the argument that it totally is, past 2seung, slice of life esque, softball players kwanhao, well part of the relationship is established
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulgy/pseuds/ghoulgy
Summary: Seungkwan almost gets run over by a bike hours after the first heartbreak of his young life.Hansol and Minghao dodge calls from friends.Somehow, things turn out okay.(Seungkwan, Minghao, Hansol and all the different ways one can love.)





	to polaris, the north star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myshonok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myshonok/gifts).



> for quinn!! love u.... congrats on GRADUATING. you are the only high school graduate on earth  
> fr thanks for being my briend (boo friend) youre so sweet and you deserve the WORLD. im glad we met like Really Genuinely thanks for being so supportive
> 
> big thanks to kat and karli for taking the time to read this over for me!!!!!!!! i would die for yall
> 
> i feel like i should explain myself re: the contents of this fic and all I really have to say is hi im back at is again with a supremely niche ot3
> 
> they dont Really time travel? pay attention to the months, not the years!
> 
> listening: making the most of the night - carly rae jepsen  
> by your hand - los campesinos!  
> the entirety of the my favorite murder podcast

**[JULY 21ST, 2018, 9:33 PM]**

OBSERVED 433 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH

 

Seungkwan eats four apricots in one sitting. They’re not very good, and even while he’s eating them he’s questioning his decision. But, he’s able to keep them down and that’s worth something.

 

His mother called four times that morning and he’d ignored her each time. He’s sick, she’s worried, the world only has so much time to give the two of them. He’d feel bad, except he’s too busy trying not to die. It’s like the time last year he passed out on his bathroom floor and woke up to Soonyoung slapping him, but this time it’s phone calls bringing his body out of its stupor. No roommates to make sure he doesn’t die on the linoleum.

 

So, Soonyoung was good for something other than making eyes at Jeonghan.

 

The apricots go back in the fridge, and then back out because _do apricots even need to be refrigerated?_ Seungkwan is too exhausted to care. He leaves them on the counter.

 

Seokmin asks who left them out when he arrives. Seungkwan doesn’t even dignify his question with an answer because _who else could have done it?_

 

“You’re not sick,” Seokmin says finally, after obviously biting his tongue for days. “You’re just wallowing.”

 

Seungkwan has to act offended otherwise Seokmin will know he’s right. “I am astonished,” Seungkwan says. “And here I thought you were my best friend.”

 

Seokmin sighs. He’s texting Seungcheol, Seungkwan knows this because his phone is hidden in the pages of a John D. MacDonald novel. He eyes the cover of the book and purses his lips. Some friend.

 

“I know getting broken up with sucks, but the whole thing was amicable.” There’s that word again. Seungkwan wonders if it means what everyone thinks it means. _Amicable breakup [_ **_am_ ** _-i-kuh-buh l_ _ˈbrākˌəp_ _], noun, apparently one where Seungkwan gets to feel like there was something he could have done better._

 

It’s easier to pretend to hate Seungcheol for making a decision than it is to say that maybe things just weren’t meant to be.

 

Seungkwan’s sick. That’s what he’s sticking with. He coughs once, to sell the rouse. Seokmin doesn’t look like he’s buying it, so Seungkwan lets himself slump over in his chair, moans miserably like he’s been wanting to do for hours now anyway. Somehow, being sick is infinitely more fun than acknowledging your longtime boyfriend isn’t in love with you anymore.

 

Or, was never in love with you. Semantics.

 

That part is complicated. His pity party doesn’t require too much thought.

 

“Let’s get gyros,” Seokmin suggests. “You haven’t left your apartment in three days.”

 

“I know how long it’s been,” Seungkwan says, indignant. He slips on a pair of sneakers Seungcheol probably bought.

 

Seungkwan doesn’t even like gyros, but he eats one anyway. He keeps it down fine. The apricots were better.

 

On the way home, Ursa Major pulses in time with Seungkwan’s steps. At least some things are consistent. Seungcheol and him, they were never a sure thing.

 

Falling in love was something like learning to speak. An unpracticed, clumsy tongue led him to ruin. Seungkwan wanted it so badly he did not care how often he stumbled over himself.

 

He craved, he did not think.

 

He’s trying not to think now, about the stars, about the sun, about how he is so small in the grand scheme of things. The stars have been burning for longer than Seungkwan could ever imagine.

 

He takes a breath, feels his ribs expand, hears his spine creak unpleasantly. Maybe desirability has something to do with permanence. Seungkwan is awfully impermanent. So is Seungcheol. So, it wasn’t supposed to work out.

 

Seungkwan nods, takes a bite out of his gyro and smiles warmly as Seokmin trips over a curb.  

 

Then, Seungkwan almost gets run over by a boy on a bike.

 

It’s fast, all Seungkwan really feels of it is a light breeze as a human body rockets past him. There’d been a stuffed bear in the basket at the front end of the bicycle. Ursa Major seems like it has something to say about that.

 

“What the fuck?” Seungkwan sputters, but the boy is gone before Seungkwan can take another breath.

 

Seokmin’s already laughing at his expense.

 

“You asshole, I could have died,” Seungkwan says, but laughter is tugging at his lungs even as he forces the words out.

 

“But you didn’t.” Seokmin pats him on the back. “And you wouldn’t have.”

 

Seungkwan pouts. He’s gotten really good at it recently.

 

 _Seungcheol had a bike_ , Seungkwan thinks, even though he doesn’t want to. Seungcheol had lots of things, like warm hands and shoes and a jacket that smelled like moss. He had passion, or something like it, once. It’s not hard to doubt what they were, especially when the fighting hardly ever stopped and the conversations grew more and more dull with every passing day.

 

Funny how these things work. Seungkwan drops the gyro, then feels bad about it and picks it back up.

 

“Do you think Seungcheol would visit me in the hospital?” he asks. The gyro is uneatable now, He pretends that’s what he’s crying over. “You know, if I got run over by a bike.”

 

The question means many things. _Does he still like me, am I still his friend, did he ever care about me at all?_

 

Seokmin bites his lip. “I don’t want you to think he’s doing this because he doesn’t care about you. I think it’s the opposite.” A pause where Seokmin begins to say something and then stops himself; where he collects his thoughts, then begins again. “Were you in love with him?”

 

The question strikes Seungkwan as an odd one because, _obviously,_ he was in love with Seungcheol. That’s how these things work. You meet, you date, you fall in love. Deviations from the formula are rare. They’re supposed to be. Seungkwan wants them to be, wants this pain to be unique. It is not, he is not.

 

Real life is different from how Seungkwan always thought it should be. Because when he was young and he would watch movies about men and women and love, he supposed the only things that could ever keep two people apart were external forces. Arranged marriages, angry parents, arctic winds, Adam Sandler. Those sorts of things.

 

Perhaps Hollywood set him up for failure. Movies don’t tell you that one day you might wake up out of love.

 

Anyway, that’s the point, Seungkwan was in love. He wants to have been.

 

“When’d you know you were in love?” It’s an important question because Seungkwan needs love put into words. Needs a road map and a compass, needs to reach his destination one day.

 

Seokmin rolls a french fry between his hands. It’s not like him to be gross and not care. He taps his feet on the sidewalk, almost reaching something like a comprehensible rhythm but never quite catching. But he’s thinking. All things are forgivable when Seokmin’s got his tongue between his teeth.

 

“Like, a month after I said it for the first time,” he laughs and Seungkwan is transported back to sophomore year of college, to the day he watched Seokmin sputter over his words as Mingyu almost coughed up a lung on the sidewalk outside his house. Love had seemed so heavy for them, then. “I said it and I didn’t mean it, and then, like, weeks later I was playing YuGiOh with Soonyoung and he was kicking my ass and Mingyu was there and he kept looking at me. And it was like, I knew then that he loved me. And that maybe I loved him, too. I think, uh, he just made me feel like I wasn’t spinning out of control.”

 

Then, he says “I’m sorry, I’m bad with words.” But Seungkwan isn’t really listening anymore.

 

He never moved past the part where he wanted to tear himself out of his own skin. Seungcheol only ever made him feel like he was never getting enough air.

 

They burned each other out rather fast, didn’t they?

 

“I wanted to love him,” Seungkwan whispers finally. And that’s about as much as he’s willing to say.

 

Later, Seungkwan dreams someone else is dreaming about him. He sees himself standing on a curb, then he almost runs himself over with a bike.

 

**[AUGUST 15TH, 1987, 8:43 PM]**

OBSERVED 425 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH, SOMEWHERE LEFT OF CANIS MAJOR

 

“No, you can’t,” Minghao makes a face at Hansol while fielding a call from Soonyoung. It’s a face that says _he wants to bring Seungcheol over again._ And that can’t happen because all Seungcheol’s good for right now is crying into bowls of cereal. Minghao and Hansol have _plans_. They’ve got cookies to bake and movies to watch and lives to live.

 

It’s not that they lack sympathy for Seungcheol and his breakup, it’s that they just don’t know him that well. And he’s sad. And it’s generally awkward to be in a relationship around someone so recently out of one.

 

“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Minghao shoots himself in the side of the head with a gun fashioned of just his fingers. He twirls the jumbled, curly phone cord around his hand absently. “Make sure he’s drinking water, or something. Tell him he’s welcome this weekend, just not today, okay?”

 

“Are we terrible people?” Hansol asks once Minghao’s hung up the phone. They certainly could be, it’s really hard to tell when they’re both in the same headspace about these sorts of things.

 

This isn’t the first time Soonyoung has attempted to drag them into a near stranger’s business. Previous incidents did not end well, which isn’t surprising, especially considering Minghao’s extensive wine collection and Hansol’s penchant for prattling off the first thought that runs across his mind. It’s a wonder Jeonghan ever spoke to them again after he wound up locked in Soonyoung’s closet three weeks after a particularly bad breakup. The wine never helps.

 

“Nah,” Minghao shakes his head. Hansol can believe he truly has it in his mind that they’re good people.

 

They need a third opinion. They won’t get one.

 

“He needs like, some milk or something,” Hansol sighs. He’s got his mother’s cookie recipe in his lap, it’s one they definitely don’t have the ingredients for, but he figures they’ll make some questionable substitutions in the end anyway. He thinks back to grocery shopping. He definitely bought seven packs of meat buns, but he can’t remember if he ever actually bought sugar.

 

“Who? Seungcheol?” Minghao twirls a straw between his fingers and ends up dropping it on the floor because, really, he’s never been good with his hands anyway. He’s better with the rest of himself. Hansol would know.

 

Minghao’s never _not_ dropping his car keys. It’s a real wonder they haven’t broken yet.

 

Hansol doesn’t provide Minghao with an answer because it should have been obvious who he was talking about. And he’s got better things to spend his energy on.

 

 _Did_ he ever buy sugar? The last time he went shopping was probably… a few weeks ago, around the time he almost killed some kid with his bike. At least that event serves as a marker on the timeline of his life. Got braces taken off, met Minghao, fell in and out of love in the span of two months, broke three bones in one week, fell in love again, this time with conviction, almost ran over a boy eating mediterranean food on the sidewalk. Also forgot to buy sugar.

 

“Is there, like, a sugar substitute?” Hansol asks, even as he’s punching his mother’s number into their landline.

 

“Honey?” Minghao is saying just as Hansol presses the call button. “Do we have honey?”

 

They don’t. And it turns out they don’t have eggs or butter either.

 

So, the ingredients list looks something like:

  * 1 1/2 cups of applesauce (substitute for the butter and eggs)
  * ¾ cup of maple syrup (replacement for the sugar and vanilla extract they forgot to buy)
  * A questionable amount of flour



The cookies don’t bake, there’s a real possibility that they might have caught on fire if they’d been left in the oven any longer. Minghao kisses Hansol against the counter and makes him eat spoonfuls of maple syrup to make up for the flour wasted.

 

**[DECEMBER 19TH, 1974, 3:44 PM]**

OBSERVED THROUGH THE SECOND STORY WINDOW OF AN ABANDONED FARM HOUSE

 

“It’s like, you know, when Soonyoung spent the night over at your place because he was convinced someone wanted to kill him after he got in a fight on Overwatch voice chat,” Seungkwan talks directly into his own hand, so his voice comes out half muffled, but Hansol doesn’t seem to mind. “So you have to promise not to think I’m like, out of my mind or anything. Don’t laugh.”

 

He can’t laugh, at least not yet, because Jun’s beat up pickup truck nearly bowls Hansol over, so the conversation is put on pause until Jun can finish apologizing and handing them both shovels.

 

“Thanks so much, really,” Jun says, eyes as flighty as ever. He’s never really sure who to focus on when talking to two people at once, so he tends to look everywhere. “I don’t have the cash to tow this thing and honestly selling it is way more trouble than it’s worth.”

 

There have got to be perks to living in the middle of nowhere, but Seungkwan can’t think of them and every time he’s looked into Jun’s whole deal, he’s regretted it. Let sleeping dogs lie, or something.

 

Jun leaves, probably off to work at whatever odd job he managed to charm his way into this month. Their friend remains an enigma for a little while longer.

 

“We both know he was being dramatic,” Hansol says finally, probably deep in thought about how Soonyoung had clung to his leg like a petulant child until Minghao had agreed to let him craft a makeshift bed on the floor of his and Hansol’s bedroom. Seungkwan can’t see it, but he knows Hansol is rolling his eyes.

 

They stay silent for a moment before Hansol says, “I won’t laugh.”

 

But Seungkwan can’t just take his word for it. He’s prone to laughing at the worst times, and certainly any laughter now would send Seungkwan backwards down a steep slope.

 

A few minutes full of nothing but the sound of shovels breaking earth pass before Seungkwan can work up the courage to speak up again.

 

“I swear I saw you,” Seungkwan starts, then stops because he’s not sure what he’s supposed to say to make this sentence make any sense. _I swear I’ve seen you before, but I don’t know where. It was like, in the moment I saw you, back at the baseball field, all I could think to tell my heart to do was pause mid-beat. And then begin again._ “Like, before we met. Somewhere.”

 

Hansol throws a shovelful of dirt to the side and blows his bangs out of his face. “This town is pretty small.”

 

“You know what I mean,” Seungkwan huffs. He is very tempted to throw dirt down Hansol’s shirt, but that doesn’t seem like the correct course of action.

 

Hansol feels nostalgic. Like old VHS tapes and being so small you could barely see over the counter. Minghao feels that way, too, but it’s different. It’s the same people, same places, same feelings. Different reasons. It is imperative that Hansol understand what Seungkwan means when he says _I think I knew you._

 

“Do I know what you mean?” Hansol replies, and the cheekiness in his voice makes Seungkwan question his decision to come out here with him in the first place. They’ve made a decent dent in the dirt, but it’ll be awhile before they can fit a whole truck beneath their feet. The sun beats down on them from above and drives Seungkwan back towards shade. He watches Hansol dig for a bit, lets himself look at the sharp angles of his face and smile. “What I think you mean,” Hansol starts talking again between deep, steadying breaths, “is that you saw me on the street and you remembered me because I’m handsome.”

 

Seungkwan feels his cheeks flush red. All fondness is replaced immediately by annoyance. “You wish.”

 

“Maybe I do,” he sighs faux dreamily. “I know what you mean, though.”

 

Then, Hansol is sharing his shade. The red on his cheeks blurs down his neck, down beneath the stretched out collar of his white t-shirt. “You think we’ve met before?” Seungkwan asks, dares to lean his head on Hansol’s shoulder and release all the tension in his body.

 

“Maybe in another life,” Hansol says, throws his arms out to gesture to the air around them, the world, the galaxy, all of time and space itself. It’s grand, the moment is frozen in time, taken, sent out across the universe. _Here is a boy with a thought,_ someone says.

 

The giggles that work their way up Seungkwan’s throat turn themselves inside out into full fledged laughter. Hansol pouts, but it’s not genuine.

 

“That’s stupid,” Seungkwan finally manages, around his tongue and all the words he could say instead.

 

“Yeah, well.” Hansol cards his fingers through Seungkwan’s sweaty hair and doesn’t wince once. “I never said it wasn’t.”

 

**[SEPTEMBER 22ND, 2009, 10:23 AM]**

OBSERVED 65 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH, JUST BEYOND HAMAL

 

Seungkwan would totally be helping Mingyu bake a cake right now if he wasn’t kind of mad at him. To be fair, it’s not like Mingyu offended him personally, he’s more of an anger proxy because Seokmin’s passed out on the couch at home so he obviously can’t direct the full force of his boyfriendly disappointment at Bastard No. 1 (the work-obsessed accountant formerly known as Kim Mingyu).

 

So, Seungkwan’s got it under control. Although, being friends with both of them is hard. Especially when they’re fighting, especially when he has an idea about how to make things better.

 

Specifically, the cake. The cake was his idea.

 

“I mean, I can do it,” Mingyu says as he cracks an egg carefully over one of Seungkwan’s clear plastic mixing bowls. “I just don’t think it’ll help.”

 

“First of all,” Seungkwan starts, spinning himself dizzy on his beat up office chair, “I can think of very few situations that could be made worse with cake. Second, I’ve known Seokmin my whole life. If you want to stop being a bastard, you really should listen to me.”

 

One time, Seungkwan had stayed out past curfew with Seungcheol senior year of high school and worried his parents half to death by not answering their calls. In his defence, his Nokia had shit battery life and every single phone charger in existence refused to let itself be jammed into the atrocity his phone called its charging port. Nevertheless, he has a vivid memory of spending four hours making a beautiful angel food cake just for his mother to cry on his shoulder about missing children for the rest of the night. So, while the cake may not have helped, it definitely didn’t make things worse. He thinks.

 

“Can’t I just go apologize now?” Mingyu whines, but he’s still checking and double checking ingredients.

 

Seungkwan rolls his eyes. _Men_.

 

“Maybe if Seungcheol and I had made each other cakes we wouldn’t have ended up like this,” he sighs, fake lamenting about a relationship that is definitely nice to be able to refer to in past tense.

 

Mingyu grimaces. He’s kind of easy to trick. It’s endearing, Seungkwan would ruffle his hair if it wouldn’t give him away.

 

In an effort to make up for transgressions of the relationship variety, Mingyu lets Seungkwan taste the cake batter. It’s passable. Needs more sugar.

 

“There’s this guy,” Seungkwan starts while Mingyu beats the fuck out of some eggs, “who just started showing up to softball practices. He’s a catcher.”

 

“Oh?” The feigned interest is a touch patronizing, but Mingyu’s got other things on his mind. Seungkwan keeps going anyway.

 

“He’s cute. He looks like,” Seungkwan bites down on his tongue and tries to picture the boy in his head, to come up with the right words to tell a story about this face. “Like, if a furby got hot.”

 

Of course, the words he says are never the right ones.

 

He gives up on trying to start a conversation when Mingyu nearly flings a whisk halfway across the room while distracted.  

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Seungkwan thinks he sees a bike speed down the sidewalk, at least three whole raw fish in the basket strapped to the front handle bars. The boy riding it has a helmet on, which strikes Seungkwan as very practical. So, either he’s seven or wildly responsible. Or neither of those things, Seungkwan doesn’t think it’s worth spending time on.

 

Lots of bikes in this city now that he’s almost been killed by one.

 

“Sugar, I need the fucking sugar.” Mingyu holds his hand out expectantly, his entire body vibrating with an overwhelming nervous energy. “Where is it?”

 

Seungkwan keeps his head tilted to the side, hand supporting its weight via the strength of one very sore elbow. He makes it a point to walk his fingers toward the edge of the counter painstakingly, knuckle bend by knuckle bend. His fingertips are just moments away from grasping the plastic exterior of the container he keeps his sugar in when Mingyu spins around so fast Seungkwan has to sit up straight to avoid falling out of his chair. There’s a loud thud. And then, the sugar goes everywhere.

 

“Goddamn it,” Mingyu curses so loudly Seungkwan considers the wellbeing of his elderly neighbors for a millisecond. “Why do you have so much of this shit?”

 

Seungkwan shrugs before he waltzes over to his laundry room to fetch a broom and a dustpan and hands them to Mingyu. “You can never have too much of a good thing. Is that the saying?”

 

**[NOVEMBER 15TH, 2003, 11:44 PM]**

OBSERVED FROM THE BACK OF A PICKUP TRUCK, SOMEWHERE IN THE MOUNTAINS

 

Even without sound, there’s something hypnotizing in the grainy video Minghao had been handed earlier in the day that makes him pause. Makes him spin around in his chair to wave Seungkwan over for a game of _how weak is Seungkwan’s stomach, really?_

 

“Seungkwan,” he stage whispers, because Hansol’s asleep on the couch and while he knows he should probably be putting more effort into making sure he stays resting, he also kind of wants Hansol’s opinion on this, too. He won’t get it. “C’mere.”

 

Seungkwan doesn’t stand up from where he’s seated on the shag carpet, just crawls his way across the room, avoiding polaroid pictures as he goes. “Yeah?”

 

“You think this is fake?”

 

He hits rewind on the VHS tape and leans back in his chair to watch Seungkwan struggle across a minefield of lego bricks and poetry books scattered across the floor. They should clean up, maybe. Eventually. It’s not trash, at least, just… intellectual clutter. That sounds better.

 

Once Seungkwan’s leaning his weight on Minghao’s leg and the VHS is done rewinding, Minghao presses the play button and turns his attention to Seungkwan’s face instead of the television. As had been the plan all along.

 

Hiccups in the recording correspond to moments where Seungkwan’s face isn’t quite illuminated like Minghao would like for it to be, but he gets to see every twitch of muscle anyway. His face contorts into a lovely grimace, something half between disbelief and disgust.

 

“That has to be fake,” Seungkwan says finally, after a moment of silence where his top lip pulls back impossibly far. His canines are long and sharp, made for biting and tearing. “I don’t want to believe I just actually watched a man get shot.”

 

“It’s real!” Minghao reveals giddily.

 

Seungkwan whips his head around and peers up at Minghao from between strands to too-long hair. A haircut is overdue. Minghao takes Seungkwan’s bangs in one hand and mimes cutting them with the other. He’s so focused he barely notices the disappointed pout being thrown in his direction.

 

“Why’d you show me that?” Seungkwan pushes Minghao’s hand away and fixes him with a confused glare. Like he thinks he wants to be angry, just doesn’t have it in himself to feel the full force of that emotion. To let it sweep him up in its tide.

 

“Thought it was cool,” Minghao responds, and, granted, that’s half true. Suddenly he’s rather worried the full truth will get him into more trouble than he’d been expecting.

 

Now that he thinks about it, he’s not entirely sure this is the first time he’s upset someone by showing them something he’d personally found interesting. Like when Joshua spent fifteen minutes emptying the contents of his stomach after Minghao had shown him photos of the Beast of Jersey, simple black and white images of a man with nothing left in his heart but malice. It’s a wonder they’re still friends. This is not the first time Minghao has had this thought.

 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t.” Seungkwan collapses backwards to lay on the carpet, arms splayed out wide by his sides. “Who even gave it to you?”

 

“Jun,” Minghao answers simply, because it shouldn’t even really be a question at this point.

 

Seungkwan just scoffs. _Of course it was Jun_ , he must be thinking. Minghao slides out of his chair and onto the floor to press himself to Seungkwan’s side, to feel his lungs expand and contract plainly. While he lays there, head on the carpet, hands across Seungkwan’s chest, he thinks seriously about the consequences of being alive.

 

Love, that’s got to be a consequence.

 

Hansol’s bike is in the kitchen today, bags of rhinestones tied up and taped shut in the basket. A consequence of living with Hansol is never knowing what the fuck he’s up to.

 

“I like you a lot,” Seungkwan says suddenly and Minghao feels it in his fingertips. “But please don’t ever show me anything like that ever again.”

 

“Noted.”

 

It’s three hours before Minghao realizes Seungkwan’s fallen asleep and they’ve both missed softball practice.

 

**[SEPTEMBER 30TH, 1965, 5:12 PM]**

OBSERVED 43 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH, JUST BEHIND CAPELLA

 [INTERLUDE, HANSOL VERNON CHWE]

 

You’re on a train when he looks at you and says, “I should have taken out a life insurance policy on both of us.”

 

You tell him there’s no one left to collect the money. That the coin machines are all gone and your luck has run out.

 

He purses his lips, stands stock still until you’re sure he’s gone and you’ve just got his outline burned into your retinas, him, his long hair, his nose against the sun.

 

“The vending machine,” he taps the side of a metal box, all the gears in it rusted, gutted, gone, “I think it’s broken.”

 

“Obviously,” you say. There is laughter on the tip of your tongue and all it takes for it to roll off is one wink from the long haired man in the jumpsuit at the end of the hall.

 

You laugh, then gasp, then heave.

 

You’re in your apartment when the walls pull in and you’ve got in your hand two pairs of shoes and a suitcase. You’re supposed to be running, but he’s just at an ATM, mourning over lost coins.

 

Because it’s like, you know, no one will ever get to use them again.

 

You think that’s silly and that if you don’t leave right now, no one will ever get to use you again, either.

 

So, the train comes and picks neither of you up because you’re halfway across Kansas and you realize you left the shoes at home. And you keep going.

 

**[NOVEMBER 23RD, 1977, 9:46 AM]**

OBSERVED THROUGH A HOLE IN A GAME OF MONOPOLY

 

“So, my aunt has two sons, and they have four children each,” Seungkwan traces a line down his taped together sheets of paper. “And my mom has me and my two sisters.”

 

The pressure he applies with his touch walks the line between firm and terrifying. He’s trying to remember it all as he talks, eyes darting every which way to get at every snippet he’s got stored away about his relatives.

 

“What about your dad’s side?” Minghao leans in to point at the bare side of Seungkwan’s family tree. The one that comes from nothing.

 

“I don’t really know much about them,” Seungkwan says matter-of-factly. “He’s never talked about his family and I never asked. In my mother’s words, _they’re not worth our time._ Whatever that means.”

 

There’s a stray tuft of hair just at the back of Seungkwan’s head and Minghao thinks that, maybe, he has feelings for it. He pushes it down and Seungkwan just hums and keeps at his work. Minghao’s family tree is still looking miraculously bare next to Seungkwan’s regardless of the absence of any paternal grandparents. That’s kind of bothersome.

 

“Well,” he says, taking the marker from Seungkwan’s hands midspin. “You know your dad has parents.” He draws two circles above Seungkwan’s father and connects them with passable straight lines. “And they had to have parents, too.” He repeats the process for Seungkwan’s grandparents. “And they also--”

 

“Oh my god,” Seungkwan laughs, perhaps out of exasperation, then takes the marker from Minghao and hits him on the shoulder with it. It doesn’t really hurt, but he pretends like it does anyway. All that earns him is an eyeroll. “How would you like it if I just speculated about your family, huh?”

 

Minghao finds that notion does not bother him in the slightest. “Do you want to?”

 

Seungkwan pauses, spins the marker around in his hands, then nods. “Why not?”

 

Minghao watches as Seungkwan draws perfect circles (well, perfect in Minghao’s opinion), on a clean sheet of paper and begins labeling them.

 

There’s Minghao, then his parents, then his aunt and uncle, then his grandparents, and really, Seungkwan isn’t that far off when it really comes down to it. He’s just missing a few pieces.

 

Hansol’s bike is conspicuously absent, so Minghao knows he’s out working, delivering a basket of oddities to whoever it is that employs him. It occurs to Minghao that he really should look into that.

 

“There,” Seungkwan says, handing the marker back to Minghao and clapping his hands together once. “How’d I do?”

 

Minghao can feel himself two seconds away from laughter. Seungkwan is proud and he’s allowed to be and that’s cute. He’s kind of absolutely one of the cutest people Minghao has ever met. But that’s not the point.

 

“A few corrections.” Minghao scratches out one aunt, adds three cousins and a few extended family members. All in all, a passable map of Minghao’s family.

 

Seungkwan still pouts. Minghao kisses him until he’s ready to laugh at himself, which doesn’t take very long at all.

 

There’s still the matter of the half completed family tree. The fix is simple really.

 

Minghao leans back and refrains from chewing at the end of the marker like a child. He pulls Seungkwan against his side and presses a kiss to his cheek and takes a moment to make a big dramatic sweeping movement with one arm before writing Hansol and Seungkwan’s names right next to his.

 

**[OCTOBER 31ST, 2012, 11:02 PM]**

OBSERVED FROM ATOP A STREET LIGHT

 

It’s 11 PM when Seungkwan hears the knock on his bedroom window and is stuck with the sudden and intense fear that he is about to be murdered.

 

Of course, he’s fine. And the knock turns out to be Hansol on his fire escape, breathing out mist and looking like a fool with two red cheeks and a shy smile. Seungkwan is in his pajamas and thoroughly embarrassed that a handsome boy with cold fingers has seen him so disheveled.

 

Opening the window, Seungkwan leans half his body out into the cold, his bare feet pressed firm into the carpet.

 

“What are you _doing_ here?” Seungkwan asks, flicking Hansol on the forearm as punishment for the scare.

 

All he gets in response is a finger pressed to his lips, effectively quieting him for the time being. It’s soft, the way Hansol moves his hand forward. Seungkwan tries and fails to not think about how the rest of his hand would feel, against his face, against his neck.

 

“Sh,” Hansol begins, voice low, his smile barely contained by the furrow of his brows, “Don’t want to wake your parents up.”

 

He moves his finger away, then, slow, methodical, like setting a mood, like a video played on half speed. “I don’t live with my parents?” Seungkwan leans further out the window without meaning to, supporting his own weight with his arms, his feet no longer on the ground.

 

Hansol moves in, nose inches away from Seungkwan’s and says, “Let’s pretend.”

 

And then, there’s the feeling of being young again, of staying up late with a book light and your parents downstairs watching TV, of someone waiting outside with a car, of sneaking down the stairs and skipping the creaky one. _Pretend_.

 

So, you know, they do.

 

Earlier in the day, Seungkwan had spent an hour on Soonyoung’s couch listening to him talk about Seungcheol and their whole offbeat romance. A lot about working late, a lot about not spending enough time together. All Seungkwan wants is for them to end up okay, but… He can’t give Soonyoung the advice he couldn’t follow himself.

 

What he needs is to be anywhere but here.

 

Hansol’s leaning on the handrail, back to the alleyway that Seungkwan can’t even look at from this height without getting nauseous and he coughs. His breath fans out between the two of them, his shoulders moving with every inhale, making him look bigger, bringing his large coat to Seungkwan’s attention.

 

“Give me a second, okay?” he whispers.

 

This is probably why he’d texted Hansol and Minghao earlier. Maybe he’d hoped for something like this. Well, maybe not. But anyway. He’s got a half full gallon of ice cream on the kitchen counter that he knows he left out earlier that he was planning to shove back in the fridge at some point, but instead he throws on shoes and a jacket and steps out onto the fire escape.

 

“You think anyone’ll notice you’re gone?” Hansol asks, hand reaching out to close the window just beyond Seungkwan’s left ear.

 

He’s close.

 

“No,” Seungkwan says, and he can mean it because _there’s no one to notice._ “Not if we leave now.”

 

There’s no time limit but the ones they make up for each other. Ten minutes, my father’s on his way home, five minutes, my mother’s cooking dinner.

 

The wind is blowing hard enough to sting their eyes and Seungkwan squints through the pain, sees Hansol doing the same, sees his teeth and his boxy smile and his kind eyes.

 

“Minghao’s in the car,” Hansol says like it’s a secret. “Run away with me.”

 

**[OCTOBER 1ST, 2020, 3:00 PM]**

OBSERVED 17 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH, BEHIND ALTAIR

 

Mingyu’s in the stands for the game today, arm draped casually over Seokmin’s shoulder, a reminder of Seungkwan’s hard work and the grains of sugar he keeps finding in between the tiles in his kitchen.

 

Seungcheol’s there, too, and Seungkwan sends him a small wave from across the field. There’s nothing there anymore, hasn’t been for a long time. And that’s more than okay. Though, Seungkwan’s not really sure why Seungcheol’s here in the first place. He’s sitting in the opposing team’s bleachers, oversized sweater between his teeth.

 

Seungkwan scoffs.

 

“Hey,” a voice comes from the end of the dugout and startles Seungkwan terribly. “Can you help me with this?”

 

It’s hot furby man, halfway in his catcher’s gear, clearly struggling with a few straps. “Minghao, right?” Seungkwan asks as he slides down the bench.

 

Minghao nods, tongue between his teeth. His long fingers work over fasteners that are clearly on backwards.

 

They’ve never talked, but Seungkwan’s definitely seen Minghao catch before, knows he’s good at it.

 

“Are you nervous?” Seungkwan asks, falling to one knee to grab at a buckle.

 

Minghao laughs. “Looks that way, doesn’t it? I’m not, I swear. I just usually have someone help me with,” he gestures to his chest protector and shin guards, “this mess.”

 

The red dirt of the infield finds its way into Seungkwan’s eyes, so he spends the rest of their mildly awkward encounter rubbing at his eyes and blindly groping for what he hopes are the correct straps.

 

A bike bell sounds somewhere to their left, accompanied by the distinct crunch of tires on gravel. Moments later, a very out of breath man is standing just behind Minghao, outside the chain link fence that separates the dugout from the bleachers.

 

“I told you I’d make it,” bike man says, his helmet still on, despite it not being fastened.

 

Minghao leans his head against the fence and looks up. “You sure did.”

 

They keep talking to each other and Seungkwan just stares out onto the field, into the other dugout where he can see Soonyoung doing stretches on the concrete. Probably not the best idea, but he’s always done whatever he wanted to.

 

On Seungkwan’s side of the field, there’s the bike, the bleachers, and one oak tree that has no business being as tall as it is.

 

The bike’s got seven Yo-Yo’s in the front basket. Something about that seems familiar. He opens his mouth to ask, then closes it again.

 

Lots of bikes in this city. Lots of people, too.

 

Minghao takes Seungkwan wrist to catch his attention. “This is the third baseman I’ve been telling you about. Probably one of the best arms on this team, aside from Jun.”

 

Seungkwan smiles sheepishly. He really didn’t think Minghao knew who he was, or cared for that matter.

 

It’s not like they’re a serious team, more accurately they’re a rec league of exceptionally bored twenty-somethings. Minghao hadn’t joined too long ago, and yet still Seungkwan hasn’t been able to stop thinking about him, about his catcher’s gear, about his hat hair and pink cheeks.

 

Bike boy gives Seungkwan an eye smile and a thumbs up. “I’d shake your hand if not for this goddamn fence.”

 

“That’s fine.” Seungkwan suddenly feels exceptionally warm. “The fence is there to keep fans away from the athletes anyway.”

 

Both Minghao and bike boy laugh and something about that hurts an organ Seungkwan didn’t know existed in a way that makes him want more.

 

“What’s your name, by the way?” bike boy asks. He’s got one finger hooked around one of Minghao’s through the fence. They feel stable. They feel…

 

“Alright,” Soonyoung yells from the dugout across the field as Seungkwan opens his mouth to give them his name. “You guys ready to get your asses kicked?”

 

“In your _dreams_ ,” Seungkwan hollers back.

 

In his peripheral vision, Minghao and bike boy flash their teeth in identical smiles. That hurts.

 

**[SEPTEMBER 25TH, 1980, 3:42 AM]**

OBSERVED 35 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH, FROM INSIDE ARCTURUS

 

Hansol can’t find his fucking John D. MacDonald books. This is an issue.

 

It’s like, you know, you almost run someone over on your bike and then your whole life turns upside down. Friends start _talking to_ people’s ex-boyfriends. Boyfriends join softball leagues. Huge mystery novel collections go missing. It’s got to be karma.

 

When Minghao gets home, slightly tipsy from his night out with Soonyoung and friends (friends being Seungcheol, probably. Minghao never specified), Hansol is on his hands and knees in their back closet, throwing pairs of shoes into the middle of their room and mumbling to himself.

 

His bike basket has room for at _least_ twenty paperbacks, maybe more, if he bends them. But they could be worth something in the future, so he chucks that idea out the window.

 

This thinking is all for naught if he can’t find the fucking books anyway.

 

Junho’s never asked him for anything before, so Hansol is determined to impress.

 

In general, the residents of Morningside are rather difficult to please, but through hard work that has mostly involved biking back and forth between the nursing home and odd shops around town, Hansol is happy to say he’s won most of the population over.

 

Junho’d never even _spoken_ to him before requesting a collection of mystery novels. This is an improvement, this is an opportunity to please that Hansol cannot pass up.

 

“What’s goin’ on?” Minghao’s standing in the doorway, trench coat still half-on and a look in his eyes that says he’s minutes away from a restful sleep.

 

“Have you seen my books?” The question is pointless because Minghao is definitely not in good enough condition to be of any help.

 

“You read?”

 

Yep.

 

Hansol ceases his search and sighs. “Let’s get you in bed.”

 

Minghao’s a sleepy drunk, his body has mostly given up by the time Hansol gets him laid down.

 

“Hansol, the softball team,” Minghao manages to say, his eyes fluttering closed and then snapping back open again. “There’s a boy on it.”

 

“Yeah?” There are probably many boys on the team, but Hansol doesn’t voice this thought.

 

“He’s like a small bear,” Minghao continues, missing the sarcasm in Hansol’s voice by at least 30 miles. “He’s so cute.”

 

Minghao is _also_ cute, especially with his cheeks all pink like this. Hansol loves humoring him.

 

“I see.”

 

“I think you’d like him,” Minghao says seriously, groping for Hansol’s hand in the dark. “He knows Seokmin, I think.”

 

There’s some connection Hansol’s mind needs to make between the search for a small collection of novels and Seokmin’s name. It only takes a moment. If this were a cartoon, a lightbulb would go off over Hansol’s head. But it’s not, so Hansol just claps once and startles Minghao terribly. “Seokmin! That’s it, you’re a genius.”

 

“I’m not Seokmin, though?” Minghao says, but Hansol’s already gone.

 

**[OCTOBER 29TH, 1972, 7:11 PM]**

OBSERVED THROUGH AN EMPTY GLASS OF GINGER ALE

 

“Double or nothing?” Seungcheol asks sheepishly after Seungkwan sinks the 8-ball with practiced ease.

 

Seungkwan just shrugs. They’re not playing for anything in particular, just passing time until one of them works up the courage to start the conversation they came here to have.

 

Soonyoung’s been working awfully hard to get them here, but now that they’re face to face again after so long it’s… awkward.

 

A sigh. Seungcheol sets up the next game and Seungkwan chalks his cue.

 

“I know I said a lot of things when we broke up,” Seungcheol says finally and Seungkwan is actually genuinely surprised. “I want you to know that I meant them. Except for, you know, um, I don’t…”

 

Seungkwan eyes his empty glass wearily. He needs something to drink.

 

“I’m not sure I was ever in love with you, and I know how that sounds, and I’m really sorry for bringing this up now, but, um…” he trails off.

 

He looks like he feels terrible, which is not what Seungkwan had wanted from this night at all.

 

“No, I get it. I loved you,” Seungkwan says, and it’s easy because he knows now what it was that they had. “I wasn’t, and I know how cliche this sounds, but I wasn’t in love, either. I think I was just glad to have you. You were really important to me. You’re like… my childhood, I guess. I don’t have much of it left. Just you.”

 

There’s a lot of history there. From the swingset in Seungkwan’s backyard where Seungcheol broke his first bone, to Seungkwan’s first beer in the back of Seungcheol’s closet. They’ve known each other for way too fucking long.

 

They mistook their friendship for something more. It happens. It happened. It’s in the past.

 

“We made some mistakes, huh?” Seungcheol takes a sip of his drink and pretends like it’s alcoholic, his face bunched up sourly.

 

“I don’t think we were a mistake, per say,” Seungkwan laughs. “I think we were stupid.”

 

Seungcheol smiles, then, for the first time that night.

 

“I kinda met someone.” Seungcheol rubs at his cheek like he’s trying to wipe something off. Seungkwan wishes he didn’t know Seungcheol’s habits inside and out. “You know him.”

 

Seungkwan isn’t surprised in the slightest. Soonyoung’s good at lots of things, keeping secrets is not one of them.

 

“That’s awesome,” he says and he really, really means it. “I think I met some people, too.”

 

**[OCTOBER 15TH, 1995, 4:40 PM]**

OBSERVED FROM SOMEWHERE IN THE MILKY WAY

 

“Okay, so here’s how this is gonna work,” Soonyoung says, his voice coming in rough over the phone. “I patch Seungkwan in under the rouse that I want to introduce him to you guys. Then, I call Seungcheol and the three of us hang up, leaving the two of them alone to talk. Like _really_ talk.”

 

Minghao prides himself in being able to recognize Hansol’s sigh. He’s at his parent’s house, so he can’t ask Minghao all the questions he’s probably got bubbling up inside him.

 

It seems the only way to get through this one is to play along.

 

“What if we don’t hang up?” Hansol asks, apparently developing the ability to read Minghao’s mind spontaneously.

 

“I’ll be mad at you,” Soonyoung fires back.

 

 _Worth it,_ Minghao thinks. Hopes Hansol’s mind reading powers are still functioning.

 

“If you’re gonna be like this, I’ll just split the call up instead,” Soonyoung says. “No way I’m leaving anything up to the two of you now. Unbelievable.”

 

What’s unbelievable is the fact that Soonyoung is going so far out of his way to get two human beings to communicate with each other. Minghao supposes they owe him this much after ignoring his calls for a week.

 

They’re probably bad people.

 

Soonyoung does most of the talking at first, which is remarkable because there’s no way he should be able to fuss with adding someone to the call while talking. He’s full of surprises.

 

“So, um, Hansol and Minghao can introduce themselves. Don’t say anything stupid,” Soonyoung warns unhelpfully. Minghao can hear the buttons Soonyoung is pressing to add Seungcheol to the call.

 

“Name and two facts,” Hansol starts, saving Minghao the struggle of coming up with something interesting to say. “I’m Hansol, I like cold weather and sleeping in.”

 

“Where the fuck am I? Is this elementary school?” Seungkwan’s voice is nice, even over the phone, even if he’s poking fun at Hansol.

 

They might have a lot in common, actually.

 

“You have a better idea?” Hansol huffs.

 

Minghao decides he should maybe pay more attention. Back his boyfriend up, or something.

 

Seungkwan’s voice is vaguely familiar.

 

“I’m Minghao,” Minghao says after an awkward pause where Soonyoung continues to work at his phone furiously. “I’ve got three trench coats and seven toes.”

 

“What? Really?” Seungkwan gasps. Probably.

 

Minghao finds a pen to doodle with. He draws a bear, one with big ears and a frown, then scratches it out and starts over. “Nah, but how crazy would it be if that were true?”

 

He draws a baseball diamond.

 

Hansol gives Minghao the audible version of an eyeroll.

 

“Got it!” Soonyoung says and there’s a click, a buzzing sound and then Seungcheol’s voice.

 

“Hello?” he says and that’s about as far as he gets before there’s another click and then silence.

 

The best part about it is that Soonyoung clearly doesn’t know how to work a telephone.

 

“Oh my god, you split the call,” Minghao says. Hansol is obviously in stitches, Minghao can feel it even with all these miles between them.

 

The doodling is left for another day.

 

“Who?” But then that’s Seungkwan. It’s not supposed to be Seungkwan.

 

Hansol laughs impossibly harder. “How’d he manage to fuck up _this bad?”_

 

After filling Seungkwan in, there’s not much left to do but sit on the phone in relative silence. Minghao thinks to hang up, but something keeps him on the line. Call it curiosity. Or self hatred, maybe.

 

“I guess it’s just the three of us, then,” Minghao says to break the trance they all seem to be under.

 

“Charlie’s angels,” Hansol supplies. “The Three Musketeers.”

 

“I never did the icebreaker,” Seungkwan speaks up, then. He sounds like he’s been thinking. Whatever vocal quality that would correspond to.

 

Seungkwan feels sure of himself. That’s something.

 

“My name is Seungkwan,” he says, something in his voice Minghao can’t quite place but wants to desperately. “My favorite sport is baseball and three months ago I was almost run over by a boy on a bike while eating Mediterranean food after the first heartbreak of my young life.”

  
It’s possible Minghao has never smiled this wide in his whole life. _I think, maybe, we knew you, before this._ “Nice to meet you, Seungkwan.”

**Author's Note:**

> probs mad confusing...... thanks for making it all the way thro lads........... if you have any questions hmu 
> 
> if u can believe it, this was written based off three words randomly generated by some website: galaxy, parallel, and basket
> 
> catch me on twt @booseoks


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